


Glory and Gore

by voxofthevoid



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Emotional Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Older Yuuri, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 12:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20025490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: Life unfurls in a flurry of ice and lights and laughing brown eyes.Yuuri wins and wins and wins, each medal tasting of sweat and blood and broken bones. Yuuko’s right there with him, dominating senior women’s, and it’s so eerily close to a dream they shared, a promise they made as children, that Yuuri expects to wake one morning and find it all a long, wondrous fever dream.And then Viktor Nikiforov slams into his world in a blaze of glory.-Role Reversal AU.





	Glory and Gore

**Author's Note:**

> Been planning to post this forfuckingever. I mean, I finished the thing last year and it’s been languishing unedited in my YoI folder since then. But here it is, dusted and posted. Another step forward in clearing out my folder!
> 
> [My tumblr's here.](https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com)

Viktor Nikiforov slams into Yuuri’s world in a blaze of glory.

He’s a slip of a thing, all of sixteen and breathtakingly glorious, and for the first time in a long time, Yuuri’s mesmerized at the sight of a skater other than Toyomura Yuuko.

Nikiforov’s senior debut ends with a bronze at the GPF, and Yuuri’s short program record in tatters. He’s taking the season off as his leg heals, and the frustration born of being banned from the ice and the slow, painful progress of physical therapy is not conductive to anything like goodwill and sportsmanship. He takes solace in the fact that no one is there to see the way resentment twists harsh and ugly in his heart.

He watches Nikiforov like a hawk, his blue eyes and sparkling smiles, and winces when the interviewer brings up the question of the record he just broke. The boy says something about admiring Yuuri as a skater, but it falls flat on ears that have heard similar sentiments time and time again, spoken out of obligation and courtesy than any measure of sincerity. It’s better that way because praise is all the more discomfiting when it’s genuine. Yuuri’s nothing to be admired, he’s just–

Desperate.

The ice is all he has. Skating is his life. And what’s the point of everything if he can’t be any good at the one thing that sets his heart on fire?

He’s acutely aware that he doesn’t have long, and Nikiforov drives that home with his perfect quads and easy elegance. Yuuri’s – well, he’s not _old_; he’s twenty, and that’s nothing in the grand scheme of life, but he’s a skater and they measure age in dog years. He doesn’t have much longer before the strain he puts on his body takes its toll. It’s a common story.

And there are always others, younger, better skaters, to take the place of those that fade into coaching and choreography or another life entirely, and in Viktor Nikiforov, Yuuri sees his past and present and future. It’s unsettling, unpleasant.

Despair hovers at the edges of his thoughts, but the next morning, he gets up on time and lets Minako drive him to his physiotherapist, and throws himself into the uphill battle with more fury than hope.

-

The world expects great things from Nikiforov, but he fades from Yuuri’s radar after the first shock of his shattered record.

It’s nothing new. Yuuri’s always been one to be lost in his own head, and it usually takes the combined effort of his friends and family to pull him out and into their midst. It’s easier these days because Yuuri’s world is bigger than it used to be but still small, still contained; just him, his parents, Mari, Yuuko, Takeshi, and Minako.

Phichit and Celestino hover at the edges, the latter happy with his place, but Phichit a force of nature who will never be content lingering at the periphery of something. Yuuri admires that about him even when he wonders how the two of them, who are a study in opposites, ever became friends.

But at the end of the day, it’s skating that is at the center of his world, Yuuri himself secondary to the passion that fills his veins.

The year after Nikiforov breaks his record, Yuuri takes it back, skating his way to a gold at the GPF and two new world records. Nikiforov didn’t make it past the qualifiers, the sudden gangliness of his limbs leaving no doubt as to the reason for his clumsiness on the ice, and in his absence, Yuuri finds that he can be gracious in victory.

The smile he gives the camera is polite and practiced, but there’s triumph tucked behind the curve of his teeth.

-

Life unfurls in a flurry of ice and lights and laughing brown eyes.

Yuuri wins and wins and wins, each medal tasting of sweat and blood and broken bones. Yuuko’s right there with him, dominating senior women’s, and it’s so eerily close to a dream they shared, a promise they made as children, that Yuuri expects to wake one morning and find it all a long, wondrous fever dream.

-

The first time Yuuri considers reaching out to Nikiforov is at yet another Grand Prix Final, this one in Fukuoka. Yuuri’s always performed well on his home turf, but the same roaring support that deafens his ears and clutters the ice after his skate also makes it hard for him to slip away from the press and the fans as he likes to do after the rush of competition leaves him tired down to his bones.

But Minako spent years yelling some semblance of showmanship into him, so Yuuri smiles for the camera and says carefully rehearsed words, Leo and Phichit on either side of him trying to draw away the fire so Yuuri can finally escape.

He manages it, eventually, and almost runs into someone who doesn’t even lift their head as they murmur an apology and stalks past Yuuri with heavy, pounding steps.

Nikiforov is easy to recognize with his mane of silver hair and colorful costume, but the clench of his fists and droop of his shoulders are at odds with the figure Yuuri has seen on screens and had a few, perfunctory interactions with. Yuuri hasn’t paid any particular attention to him, at least no more than what he’s afforded his other competitors, the only notable moment that strange realization a few years ago that Nikiforov has grown into a very pretty man. Beautiful people who skate beautifully have always been Yuuri’s weakness, but it’s rare that aesthetic appreciation becomes anything resembling a crush. The first was Yuuko, the last Phichit; both were precious, short-lived things.

He doesn’t _like_ Nikiforov, but he’s not the sort of person one can manage to ignore.

But for all that he is lovely and fae-like once he steps on the ice, Nikiforov has never managed to elicit the kind of focus that Yuuri reserves for those that attempt, some loudly and others quietly but more viciously, to dethrone him. Well, that’s Minako’s word, not his, but Yuuri’s reasonably attached to his position as the reigning men’s champion and the unofficial record of being the one to hold the position for three – about to be four, if he has his way – consecutive years, and that fiercely competitive part of him refuses to roll over and let another take his place.

And there have been many who tried, but he doesn’t know if Nikiforov is one of them. His early years in the senior circuit birthed murmurs of a legend in the making, but those faded in the years that followed. By the time he hit his twenties, Nikiforov was a good skater, an excellent one, but there were laments that he would never be a _great_ one.

It’s not mediocrity – Yuuri’s intimately familiar with _that_, and Nikiforov, with his near-perfect technicality and propensity for weaving wild, complex stories on the ice, never was and never will be mediocre. But he’s missing something, something that lands him in major competitions but keeps him from podiums, something that turns the bright smiles he turns on his fans and reporters a little less real with each passing year.

Alright, perhaps Yuuri has been watching Nikiforov a little more intently than he’s willing to admit even to himself.

He calls it professional curiosity with the full knowledge that if Yuuko were to hear, she’d turn those wide brown eyes on him and snort with laughter.

None of that matters now, because the images that loop in Yuuri’s mind is of Nikiforov’s free skate, a barely contained disaster that saw knees and hips slam on the ice and limbs move in a lifeless mockery of Nikiforov’s gloriously spirited performances. There was little animation on his face in the kiss and cry, just mumbled responses to the grave words of his coach, and Yuuri envied the way he ditched any prying questions once the results found him in fifth place, just a few decimal points above the one in last place.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that _something_ happened to the man between his short program and free skate, but whatever it is, the media hasn’t got hold of it, and Nikiforov’s stony expression doesn’t welcome questions.

Yuuri is no better at offering comfort than he is at receiving it, least of all with strangers, but as he watches Nikiforov walk away, silver hair swaying and effortlessly graceful, a name flutters and dies in his throat.

-

The next year finds him the GPF gold medalist for the fifth consecutive year, and there are already predictions that Worlds will yield the same result. Equally loud are speculations of his retirement.

Yuuri’s twenty-seven, still young.

But – dog years.

His body seems to agree, joints creaking ominously in the morning and his assortment of aches taking longer to fade. It’s nothing serious. He has a few years left in him, physically.

Mentally…

On the opposite side of the banquet hall, Yuuko is talking to her sponsors, most of whom have become her friends because her charm is the kind that creeps up on you, leaving you unaware until you’re hopelessly tangled up in it. The smile on her lips is slightly strained, and Yuuri knows that they’re talking about her retirement. If they were in private, with Yuuko and Takeshi and maybe Minako, Yuuko would be wearing that half-pained, half-relieved expression that has been accompanying their few but long discussions on the matter.

A part of Yuuri wants to go to her and offer what comfort he can, even if it’s just making a scapegoat of himself so she can escape, but then Takeshi is there, champagne glasses in both hands as he gleefully extracts his wife from the crowd’s clutches.

Yuuko will be fine.

Yuuri’s in need of a little comfort himself.

He takes shameless advantage of the eyes still lingering on Yuuko to slip out the door. In his head, he can hear Minako’s admonishment, but she drank a little too much last night and spent the morning sick before collapsing in bed with dire threats of what would happen to anyone foolish enough to disturb her. It’s just Celestino here, and he has his hands full with Phichit, leaving little time to spare to ensure that Yuuri’s behaving. He does, usually, even if he hates crowds and talking to strangers, because Minako took it upon herself to make sure that he _performed_ well enough in these things to make her proud. She wasn’t always gentle about it, but that’s Minako for you.

He’s spent years choking down screams to smile through these banquets. Yuuri figures he owes himself a break.

The hotel’s gardens are green and cozy, full of neatly trimmed rose bushes, evenly spaced benches, and low, pleasant lighting. Yuuri spent most of last night here, too restless to stay in his room and too anxious to venture out into the streets. There’s a pond in the middle, and he makes his slow way towards it, legs moving almost blindly while he’s lost in his head.

He doesn’t want to retire, but it’s no longer a desire born of that old all encompassing passion. It’s mostly that he doesn’t know what he will do, what he will _be_, once he gives up competing. He can’t leave the ice, it’s still his greatest love, but there’s a bitterness to it, like he’s holding onto a love that’s toxic and draining just because he can’t fathom letting go.

And he’s had Yuuko by his side for as long as he’s had the ice, and now that one’s leaving him, he’s not sure if the other will be enough.

He hasn’t been in love with Yuuko since he was fifteen and swallowing the bitter pill that she would never look at him the way he looked at her, that he’d always be a friend and a brother, never a lover. But that was fine because she was still with him, skating and fighting and winning with him, and they weren’t partners the way ice dancers were, but for so long, one of the constants in his life was that Yuuko would be there with him in victory and misery, her own medals gleaming.

Yuuri doesn’t begrudge her the decision to settle down and have a family. Takeshi is perfect for her, and the two of them will be wonderful parents, and Yuuri is happy for them, he _is_ but–

He feels a little abandoned too.

“Oh,” says someone.

Yuuri comes to a halt so sudden that he stumbles, but strong hands catch him by the shoulders and Yuuri suddenly finds himself blinking up at the very surprised face of one Viktor Nikiforov.

“Ah.” Yuuri blinks, brain not quite catching up the sudden shift in situation. “You’re taller than me.”

“I – yes? A few inches. I measured.”

Yuuri blinks again, watching mostly in confusion as Nikiforov turns pink and then red.

He lets Yuuri go as if burned and backs away, dropping a little too fast to one of the benches. There’s a light somewhere behind him, the pond reflects the moon’s glow, and it all leaves Nikiforov’s face shadowed in interesting ways.

“I assume you came out here to be alone,” Nikiforov says, his tone reminiscent of a very long sigh.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says numbly, shaking off the cobwebs in his mind. “You did too, I take it.”

Nikiforov shrugs.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m not good company at the moment, but that applies to myself too, I guess.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say so he says nothing.

“Do you want me to leave?” Nikiforov asks after a pause.

“You were here first. I should leave.”

Another shrug, oddly aggressive, answers him.

“Stay, if you want. I don’t mind.”

Yuuri is about as fit for company as Nikiforov apparently is, which is to say not at all, but something compels him step forward and lower himself onto the bench beside Nikiforov. It’s long enough that they can sit without touching, but the distance between them is a scant few inches that feels uncomfortably intimate.

The silence is even more awkward.

Nikiforov is the one to break it.

“We’ve never really talked.”

“I think we have, once or twice, during competitions.”

“Please,” Nikiforov snorts. “We smiled at each other for the press, and you said some bullshit about young talent.”

“You _are_ talented,” is all Yuuri can say, more than a little bewildered. He expects more derisive laughter or maybe a reprimand for being condescending, but instead, Nikiforov goes oddly still. It says something about how close they are sitting that Yuuri knows the moment he stops breathing.

He risks a sideways glance and finds the man staring straight ahead, hands clenched in his lap and teeth sunk into his lower lip.

“Do you…mean that?”

“Yes,” Yuuri answers, no less confused but entirely honest. “Of course.”

“Oh.”

Nikiforov’s breath leaves him in a rush, and he seems to sag in place. Yuuri averts his eyes and considers making his excuses but neither the banquet room or his own suite are appealing at the moment, and the same despondent aura that makes Yuuri want to leave Nikiforov alone also makes him reluctant to leave him by himself in this beautiful, lonely garden.

He doesn’t say anything because words and Yuuri are emphatically not friends, and Nikiforov isn’t like the press, there to be mollified with something generic and rehearsed.

Once again, it’s the other man who breaks the silence.

“There are rumors of your retirement,” he says, and this time, it’s Yuuri who freezes. “But I know the way skaters gossip, so I didn’t believe anything.”

He stops there, a hint of a question in his words, slight enough that Yuuri can ignore it if he so pleases. He does, really, but some strange force makes him open his mouth.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Nikiforov repeats carefully once it’s clear that’s all Yuuri is going to say. “Fair enough. It would be a pity. You’re stunning to watch. But that’s just me being selfish. I guess we’re the same in this.”

Yuuri chances another look at Nikiforov. His hands are clasped over his thighs now, fingers tapping on skin to some unheard rhythm.

“How so?”

Because Nikiforov can’t be feeling like Yuuri is. He’s younger, with more to give, more to prove, not like Yuuri who poured himself into the ice until his flesh was hollow and aching, whose victories sometimes taste as bitter as those early years of unremarkable failures.

Nikiforov leans in, like he’s about to share a secret.

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

Yuuri jolts, spine snapping straight as he turns to gape at Nikiforov who looks half-puzzled and half-amused at the reaction.

“B-but you’re so young! And you have the skill to keep going!”

“Keep going,” Nikiforov repeats thoughtfully. “Mm, yes, I could. Keep going, just like this, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

“What?” Yuuri thinks he can be excused for staring at Nikiforov like he’s grown a second head. “I don’t – what does marriage have to do with this?”

Nikiforov gives him a deeply disappointed look that reminds Yuuri intensely of Yuuko. He pats Yuuri on the arm.

“I can’t judge you too much. English is weird.”

“I’ve lost you.”

“Ah, but did you ever have me?” Nikiforov asks, and that makes even less sense than the bride comment. “I wanted that for a while, you know. Skating was about you as much as it was about how much I loved the ice. I wouldn’t have minded being in your shadow for a long time, if only I got to touch the flesh at least once.”

“I don’t – I don’t understand,” Yuuri says, understandably lost. There’s a feeling in the air and tightening his chest, something soft and grave, but he’s not sure if it’s something he wants to pursue. But leaving has even less appeal.

Yuuri’s no stranger to other skaters confessing their admiration for him. It never got any less surreal, but sometime after his first gold sweep, Minako and Yuuko staged an intervention and beat it into his head – very gently on Yuuko’s part, very ruthlessly on Minako’s – that the reality where he was a dime-a-dozen skater was one that existed only in his head. There were graphics involved. It only took Yuuri another year or so to more or less accept it.

Still, the fact is that Nikiforov is not the first to say Yuuri influenced or inspired his skating, but there’s a certain gravity to his words and tone that makes Yuuri sit still and _listen_, even when he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t either, sometimes,” Nikiforov replies. “But I remember seeing you on the screen when I was young. Eleven, I think. You were – you made music with your body. And I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

Yuuri can’t speak, can hardly breathe, but Nikiforov doesn’t seem to expect a response, and when he turns his eyes on Yuuri, they look right through who he is towards someone he never was. That’s a familiar sensation too, one he’s become accustomed to, but for the first time in a long time, it stings.

But then Nikiforov blinks, and the wry smile at the edges of his lips are only for the Yuuri of the here and now.

It reminds him of the glimpse he caught of Nikiforov in the kiss and cry. When all was said and done, he was in fourth place, missing the podium by a hair’s breadth. Even before his scores were announced, Nikiforov was smiling, faint and tired and bitter.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes, realization slamming into his bones. “That’s what you meant.”

Viktor tilts his head in an oddly birdlike motion.

“Never a bride,” Yuuri clarifies, cheeks heating, but the laughter that escapes Viktor, loud and surprised and real, is worth his embarrassment. It does wonders to his face, transforms it from a thing of marble beauty to a warm work of art.

“I’m stagnating,” Viktor agrees cheerfully. “My coach wants me to focus on my presentation, and it’s easy enough to act out a part, but hard to feel it deep inside when there’s nothing there that’s not dull and empty, you know? Or, well, not know. I hope. It’s not pleasant. I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. My ideas for actually, properly meeting you involved gold medals and flowers and you sweeping me off my feet.”

“Flowers,” Yuuri echoes, deeply skeptical.

Viktor laughs again, the sound like wind chimes clinking in the breeze, sweet and pleasant.

Viktor never laughed like this for the camera. He was quick to smile and full of good humor, always pretty too, but there’s something about these peals of laughter, a certain unpolished roughness, that make them all the more endearing.

“Roses,” Viktor says, still chuckling, but quieter somehow. “Red roses, red like blood.”

“That’s…romantic.”

“I am, that. Yakov calls me a fool.”

“I…like roses,” Yuuri offers after a significant pause, and the smile Viktor turns on him makes him feel a little too warm inside.

“Thank you for indulging me,” Viktor says. “I’ve been told that’s an exercise in patience and alcohol tolerance, but look at you, taking me stone cold sober. If you want to return the favor and pour your heart out to a near-stranger, I’m here, but if you want me to leave you alone with the moon, I can do that too.”

The choice here is obvious, because this just isn’t the sort of thing Yuuri does, and it’s a minor miracle that he hasn’t fled already. But instead of taking the out Viktor has graciously offered, Yuuri reaches over to lay his hand on Viktor’s knee, gripping a little too tightly.

Viktor sighs wordlessly and leans against Yuuri. He’s a warm and solid, and Yuuri’s arms itch with the need to gather him closer.

“There’s nothing to say,” Yuuri whispers, half-hoping that Viktor won’t hear. “I’m getting old. And boring, in a way. They take it for granted that I’ll win, and I feel that, sometimes, I don’t really deserve to.”

Viktor’s hand covers his, gripping tight, and Yuuri gets the sense that he wants to say something but is keeping quiet for Yuuri’s sake. It’s a more conscious effort than Yuuri’s bewildered silence earlier, and he appreciates it even as it makes him want to poke the little furrow between Viktor’s brows.

“I don’t want to leave the ice,” Yuuri confides, turning to look Viktor in the eye. It’s hard, but he needs to. “But I can’t stay, not as I am.”

Viktor interlaces their fingers and nods like he understands, and Yuuri barely knows this man, but the last several moments meant _something_, and he believes wholeheartedly that Viktor does.

“Can I ask you something?” Yuuri blurts before he can think better of it.

Viktor starts a little, a frown flashing on his face before it becomes a curious half-smile.

“Well, I’ve already bared half my soul to you, why hold back now? Go on.”

“Ah, no, it’s not, you don’t have to–”

“Yuuri,” he says softly, smiling. “You’re cute. I didn’t expect that. And I was joking. You can ask. I will answer if I can.”

Yuuri ignores the heat creeping down his neck and raises his free hand to finger the edges of Viktor’s bangs. He sweeps it to the side, revealing a blue eye blown wide, and follows the motion further back until his fingertips are caressing the fine strands at the nape. He brushes skin too, soft and warm, and Viktor shivers lightly.

Like this, they’re close enough to kiss.

“Why did you cut your hair? Last year, after the Grand Prix Final, you…”

“Caused a stir, didn’t I?” Viktor asks, smirking. “I swear half my fans love me for my looks rather than my skating.”

“You’re talented,” Yuuri says firmly, but because his foot is quite fond of his mouth today, he follows that up with, “You’re beautiful too.”

It’s worth it because Viktor’s face glows red and wonder fills his eyes before it’s hidden by the soft skin of his eyelids.

“I, um, well, this will sound trite, but I just needed a change. Something happened then, my dog, she almost died–” Yuuri gasps quietly, a flash of genuine distress pulling the sound from him, and it makes Viktor open his eyes. Whatever he sees on Yuuri’s face makes him lean closer until their foreheads are touching. “It’s okay, she’s fine now, as spry as ever, but for a while, she wasn’t.”

“Your free skate,” Yuuri murmurs, cupping the back of Viktor’s neck gently, firmly.

“That was a mess and a half, hm?”

“You weren’t at Worlds.”

“I’m surprised you noticed.” Viktor says it plainly, no accusation in his voice, but Yuuri flinches anyway because he knows himself well enough to be certain that he wouldn’t have noticed if not for the way the memory of watching Viktor walk away, strong but defeated, haunted him all those months. Viktor smiles, and his hand comes up to rest lightly on Yuuri’s cheek, his thumb at the edge of his lips. “I was with her, did some hard thinking on my priorities. Makka won over skating, then, but I’m still here so clearly, I can’t just cut my losses. I should. The hair was my attempt at trying something new, _being_ something new. I’m good, I know that, but it’s not enough, and I don’t know how long I can chase shadows, Yuuri.”

Yuuri closes his eyes, scrambling internally for something, anything to say, but Viktor deserves more than platitudes, and Yuuri can’t even solve his own issues so how can he solve Viktor’s?

In the end, he curls his hand tighter around Viktor and whispers his words dangerously close to soft pink lips.

“I’m not a shadow.”

Viktor shudders, and Yuuri drinks in the flutter of silver lashes with his heart in his throat.

“No,” Viktor says, low and intent. “You’re not.”

-

They end up in Viktor’s room, crashing past the door with their mouths attached with barely contained desperation. Yuuri doesn’t remember who kissed who, just that between one floor and the next, his back was pressed to the elevator mirror and he was reeling from the realization that Viktor tasted fruity in that plastic way lip balms had.

Now, Viktor just tastes like wet, hot flesh, and Yuuri burns for him.

Viktor’s bigger than him, taller and broader, but he clings to Yuuri like he’s trying to crawl into his skin, and when Yuuri grabs him by the ass and _lifts_, his legs wrap around him like a vice. There’s a groan, faint and almost lost between their lips, but Yuuri pulls back an inch to breathe it in, and then chases it back into Viktor’s mouth, licking inside to trace a promise with the tip of his tongue.

Fingers curl into hair, roughly clutching a handful. Yuuri makes a sound that’s part-amused, part-aroused and bites down on Viktor’s lips until he shudders.

They make it to the bed without major injury though there’s a point at the end where they tip backward precariously, and Yuuri almost breaks his back balancing them. Viktor, clinging to him like a handsy koala, is not much help, and Yuuri’s unspeakably amused when he has him spread out on the bed under him, all flushed pink and halfway debauched.

He’s glad that Viktor apparently forgot to turn off the room’s lights before he left because he couldn’t have torn himself away from Viktor if his life depended on it, and then he’d have missed the sight before him. Viktor is stunning and surreal, enough to make Yuuri freeze and wonder, for a few charged moments, how this is even happening.

Then Viktor’s hand curls over the back of his neck and pulls him down, and Yuuri’s lost again in the heat of his mouth.

It’s not enough though, and when Viktor tears away with a laugh from Yuuri’s frenzied attempt to devour him, Yuuri mouths along his jaw, flicking his tongue along smooth skin stinging with the bitter tang of aftershave. Viktor breathes in ragged sighs and bares his throat for Yuuri, smelling of perfume that matches the taste of his lip balm.

_Apples_, Yuuri decides between breaths, knowing this scent will be ingrained into his senses forever.

It will be more pleasant than most of the memories that haunt his waking hours, but even now, tangled with a man he barely knows, Yuuri gets the sense that Viktor Nikiforov is not the kind of memory you can cling to without aching a little at the loss.

That’s terrifying, but Yuuri can’t pull away.

He worries bruises on Viktor’s pretty, pale neck with his teeth, treasuring the moans that beg for more and the hands that claw at his back, and when he pulls back to straddle Viktor, it’s with satisfaction on the curl of his lips. Viktor looks halfway to wrecked already, clothes askew and hair a mess, cheeks flushed pink and neck red from Yuuri’s mouth.

Viktor curses in Russian, hushed and harsh, and honestly, he could be calling for God for all Yuuri knows, but for all that the words are unfamiliar, the tone and the look on Viktor’s eyes is not.

“Can I?” Yuuri asks, hands poised over the second button on Viktor’s shirt. The first seems to be missing. Yuuri’s not really in the mood to feel guilty.

“Please,” Viktor says with a laugh that rings with something very much like madness. “I’m dying.”

_Will my dick cure you_, the part of Yuuri that likes to channel Phichit whispers in his head, and because Yuuri has lost his mind sometime between seeing Viktor in the garden and kissing him in the elevator, he echoes it out loud.

Viktor makes a choking noise, body shuddering as he breaks into loud, real laughter, and Yuuri basks in the beauty of it even as it makes it much harder for him to get Viktor’s shirt unbuttoned.

He rips it off.

Viktor abruptly falls quiet, but the look in his eyes when Yuuri meets his gaze is the very opposite of a reprimand.

“_Fuck_,” he says, quietly, emphatically, and Yuuri has to kiss him.

It’s chaste this time, as Yuuri lingers on the softness of Viktor’s lips, warm and a little wet where they rest on his. And when he draws back again, there’s something in Viktor’s expression that makes Yuuri want to curl himself around this man and promise to never let ago.

But they’re just two lonely men yearning for a night of peace, and Yuuri’s well aware that nothing gold can stay.

He has Viktor now though, bright and beautiful, and he doesn’t understand why his head can’t shut up and let him sink into the mingled heat of their bodies.

“I’ve wanted this,” Viktor breathes, “for a very long time.”

There’s an irrational flare of anger in Yuuri, directed not at Viktor but at himself, his past selves, and the carefully constructed, meticulously maintained, utterly unreal persona he has projected for the last decade of his career. It’s not Yuuri, that man with his knife-thin smiles and perfect composure, but he’s been fooling people for so long, and Viktor’s just another one of the victims.

It doesn’t change how Yuuri wants to be _seen_ tonight.

He’s a little rougher than he wants to be when he yanks Viktor’s pants down. It reveals a flimsy, lacy thong underneath, and he stops and stares like a man enchanted until Viktor huffs and thrusts his hips into the air in a very clear demand to be stripped. Yuuri complies, sneaking fingers under black fabric, helpless to resist letting them snap once against Viktor’s hips. A faint red band forms on the skin, vanishing all too soon, and Yuuri finds himself bending until his teeth are set against the just of Viktor’s hipbones, nibbling none too gently before they close in around the side of the thong.

There’s more cursing from above him, this time in English, as Yuuri tugs it down inch by inch until it gets too awkward and he has to rise and pull it off the normal way.

It leaves Viktor naked from the waist down and with his black shirt parted over his torso, a sight that knocks Yuuri’s breath out of his lungs.

Viktor gives him a slow blink, licks his lips, and smiles, small and knowing and _filthy_.

“What do you want?” Yuuri asks, barely recognizing his own voice.

“Anything. Everything.” He spreads his legs, cock bouncing a little at the motion and drawing Yuuri’s eyes to it. “You can start with getting naked and fucking me until I forget my own name.”

“You’ll remember mine,” Yuuri promises without quite thinking about it, and sets about stripping off his suit jacket and the shirt underneath.

He manages to peel them off but isn’t given a chance to get to his belt before Viktor proves himself delightfully bendy by hooking a leanly muscled leg around Yuuri’s waist and roughly tugging him over. He collapses on Viktor’s chest, both of them wheezing at the impact, but his apology is broken when Viktor pulls him even closer, relentless until Yuuri’s draped over him like a blanket. The kiss he’s pulled into isn’t gentle either, Viktor attacking him with the same hunger that saw them stumbling along the corridor, and Yuuri’s too weak to do anything but part his mouth and suck on Viktor’s tongue.

The touch on his clothed erection almost makes him leap out of his skin.

Viktor, palm now flat against the bulge in Yuuri’s pants, muffles a laugh against his mouth, though it’s quite satisfying to hear it turn into a groan when Yuuri bites his jaw in retaliation.

“You’ll leave marks,” Viktor says hoarsely, sounding quite pleased about it. Between their bodies, his hand is massaging Yuuri’s dick, making it hard to arrange words into a coherent response.

“Remember me,” is what escapes in the end, and Yuuri wants to look away from the stricken look Viktor’s wearing, but those ocean blues hold him fast, and it allows him to see the heartbreakingly soft expression that follows the surprise.

“Until the day I die,” Viktor promises, and something clenches painfully in Yuuri’s chest.

He kisses him and shuts them both up.

He ends up grinding against Viktor, his cock hard and trapped in his slacks, straining as if to join Viktor’s, pretty and flushed and wet at the tip as it slides hotly against Yuuri’s belly. It’ll be easy to come like this, to the taste and feel of Viktor, but it’s not enough. He wants more, and maybe Yuuri doesn’t quite understand _how_ he got here, but he knows it’s exactly where he wants to be, and he will enjoy it while it lasts.

Viktor is exquisite. Yuuri can’t possibly keep him.

He wrenches away from Viktor’s writhing body, sliding past grasping hands and biting back a whimper to match Viktor’s mournful whine.

“Ssh,” he soothes, patting Viktor’s chest and not-so-accidentally thumbing a pert nipple. It’s so _pink_. Viktor gasps, eyes half closing. “We need things. Lube. Condoms.”

Viktor blinks at him with unfocused eyes before they sharpen. He almost bowls Yuuri over when he shoots up and flings himself to the side of the bed, giving Yuuri a perfect view of his bubbly ass as he roots around in something. Yuuri keeps his eyes shamelessly trained on that lovely ass and shapely thighs while pulling his pants and underwear off.

When Viktor turns around clutching his prize and promptly freezes, Yuuri feels a mix of pleased and self-conscious.

The expression that twists Viktor’s face, all fierce, consuming hunger, almost obliterates the latter.

He has Viktor under him again soon enough, legs loose around Yuuri and hands clawing at the sheets while he fucks himself on three fingers. He’s impatient, Yuuri has found, demanding more and _more_ even as his body tightens almost painfully around each finger Yuuri works into him. Yuuri’s helpless to deny him, but he has to wonder if Viktor’s still chasing that shadow.

“Enough,” Viktor pants, eyes screwed shut and knuckles white around the black bedspread. “Put it in, I’m ready, come on.”

“Are you–”

“Give it to me,” Viktor snaps, voice wild and wrecked, brimming with need and desperation. “_Please_.”

Yuuri, aching and dripping between his legs, gives in with a final crook of his fingers inside Viktor.

“I hate those things,” Viktor says, pouting, as Yuuri puts on the condom, but he hikes his legs up, once again proving how wonderful cross-training has been for him as he essentially folds himself in half and presents his slick, slightly swollen hole for Yuuri.

Yuuri doesn’t accidentally tear the condom in half, but it’s a near thing.

“Safety,” he chokes out and nearly face-plants on the bed in his haste to get to Viktor whose smirk is smug and knowing.

He’s not smirking when Yuuri’s pushing into him.

It’s mesmerizing, the way Viktor’s eyes go wide and dazed and how his body trembles as it swallows Yuuri up. He’s scorching even through the thin latex of the condom, and it takes everything Yuuri has not to slam into him with reckless abandon. He’s slow and steady instead, gripping Viktor’s thighs and carving finger-shaped bruises on the milk-white flesh there as his cock disappears inch by inch into Viktor’s inviting heat.

He bottoms out with a moan that’s torn out of his chest, and Viktor answers with a faint keening noise and his walls spasming around Yuuri. He sinks his fingers harder into Viktor’s thighs, clinging to soft skin and hard muscle, and pants until the need to blindly fuck into Viktor eases a little.

“Viktor, Viktor, you alright?”

Blue eyes gone dark with lust blink slowly at Yuuri.

“You’re…a lot, I – fuck, I’m…” Viktor trails off with strained laughter, and Yuuri’s afraid if he’s too much, if Viktor has changed his mind, but a glance shows Viktor’s own cock standing hard and proud, precum slicking the head and trickling down the shaft.

“Move,” Viktor bites out a moment later, clenching around Yuuri for emphasis, and the harsh snap of his hips is almost instinctual. He does it again, and again, watching transfixed as Viktor pants open-mouthed, petal pink lips quivering and begging to be bitten. Yuuri settles for biting savagely at his own as he tries to bring himself under some semblance of control, though the small, ravaged sounds Viktor makes with each rattling thrust nearly makes him keep going until they both scream and shatter.

Yuuri doesn’t stop but he slows, breathing heavily through his nose. There’s fire flooding his veins and pulsing in his cock, begging that he drive into Viktor and take his pleasure, but he knows this will be better if he takes it easy and makes it good for them both, so he does, his breaths slowly falling into a gentler rhythm.

Viktor, now with a hand tangled in his own hair, looks at him with wide, lost eyes.

“You feel so good,” Yuuri tells him like a secret, punctuating it with a long, slow stroke that shoots sharp sensation up his spine. Viktor closes his mouth with a click, whatever he was about to say lost as his eyes clench shut and a sweet, breathy moan spills from his lips.

Yuuri does it again, faster this time, and is awarded with Viktor’s eyes snapping open and a shout that curls deliciously around his skin.

Viktor’s oddly docile, his pleasure evident in the flush of his skin and the trembling of his limbs and the slick of his cock, but the noises that slip past him are quiet and involuntary, and he seems content to let Yuuri keep him folded and open and fucked full. So Yuuri does, taking his time with it, letting his eyes drink in each gorgeous inch of Viktor’s body as the thrusts of his cock slow from mindless fucking to something that may, in another world with another pair of men, be called making love.

Viktor pants and moans through it all, and finally, he starts to move, driving down to meet Yuuri’s thrusts, jerky at first but then steady, his pace increasing with marked frenzy. Yuuri allows it, enjoys it, but keeps a tight hold on Viktor’s legs and slows his own movements, not quite sure what he’s trying to do but liking the slow, thrumming pleasure of their joined bodies.

Then Viktor’s making a noise like a wounded animal and slamming down onto Yuuri, taking him _deep_, rough and violent. Yuuri’s nails score red tracks on Viktor’s thighs, but he doesn’t even notice the sting, head thrown back to gulp in loud, heaving breaths.

“_Viktor_,” Yuuri gasps, blinking stars from his eyes.

Viktor tosses his head to the side and doesn’t look at Yuuri when he says, “Faster, I need – more, fuck, please.”

And Viktor sounds so wrecked, so needy, that Yuuri nearly listens to him. But there’s something not right about the look in those bright blue eyes, a hazy distance as they finally peer at Yuuri and seem to see straight through him, like that moment earlier in the garden. Yuuri hates it with a vehemence that shocks him, but he doesn’t know what to say to make Viktor _look_ at him, and Yuuri’s never been good with words anyway.

His body knows what to do though.

Viktor whines low in his throat when Yuuri pulls out of him, hips trying to chase the motion, but he keeps his leg spread wide in anticipation of more. Yuuri aches to give it to him, but he makes himself so still and quiet, waiting until Viktor focuses on him with a wounded, betrayed expression.

“Why’d you–”

“Viktor,” Yuuri says softly, maybe a little needy himself. “Look at me.”

“I am–”

Yuuri shakes his head, hard and jerky, and presses fresh bruises on Viktor’s legs.

“No, you’re not. You were, but now you’re not. Look at _me_.”

See, he’s bad with words, babbling like this, but maybe it’s the tone, hushed and desperate, that gets to Viktor because some of the frustration falls off his expression, and he pins Yuuri with wide, lost eyes.

“I’m here,” Yuuri says a little helplessly.

_See me_, he doesn’t say.

Maybe Viktor hears it anyway because the smile that tugs at his mouth is rueful for a moment before it turns into a lopsided grin that does cruel things to Yuuri’s heart.

“You are,” Viktor agrees, and when he reaches for Yuuri with his hand, their fingers entangle a little too tightly.

Yuuri doesn’t let go even when he guides himself into the soft warmth between Viktor’s legs that welcomes him in like it’s hungry for him. He takes it slow, slower, treasuring each searing inch that he takes and watching Viktor like a hawk as his expression slips into one of slack-jawed pleasure. His eyes almost close but flutter open with visible effort, finding Yuuri’s gaze and locking there, a promise and a challenge.

Yuuri grips Viktor’s hand so tight that their bones grind together and fucks him with long, steady thrusts that are too little and too much and everything in between.

Viktor never closes his eyes and his faint gasps ring with Yuuri’s name.

-

Yuuri doesn’t remember falling asleep, just a hasty clean-up amidst glancing touches and skittish eyes. He doesn’t know what Viktor was thinking, but Yuuri himself just didn’t know how to react in the aftermath of sex that felt far too intimate for a one-time tryst.

If he closes his eyes, he can see the way Viktor mouthed his name into the pillow when he came, and how he held Yuuri’s hand as he followed right after.

He’s not the sort to spend the night unless he’s drunk enough to make bad decisions he’s sure to regret in the morning. But last night, he was, as Viktor said, stone cold sober, yet he still ended up in bed with a competitor and a fan and a not-so-perfect stranger. When he wakes with Viktor’s head on his chest and their legs hopelessly tangled, he has a moment where he violently regrets everything he did last night.

Then Viktor shifts, makes a faint murmuring noise and nuzzles into Yuuri, and those thoughts vanish as if they never were.

Trepidation remains.

Yuuri tentatively fingers the hair at Viktor’s nape, loving the softness of them. When he cards his fingers through it, Viktor sighs but doesn’t stir.

He has no idea what he’s doing, and last night feels like a fever dream. Heart-to-hearts in the dark, that fleeting sense of camaraderie, fucking a fellow skater – none of it’s like him at all.

But Viktor is nothing like he expected, if he takes the time to sift through years’ worth of memories to collect whatever expectation he formed. He’s certain that the young man he encountered in the garden is not the way Viktor usually is, but he likes that they shared those mutually unguarded moments together, like some force of fate brought them together just for it.

It’s a fanciful, more than slightly ridiculous thought, but Yuuri lets himself indulge, just a little.

Then he untangles himself from Viktor, slips out of bed, and pulls on his clothes. He lingers more than he should, some foolish part of him hoping that Viktor will wake and ask him to stay and sheer awkwardness will make Yuuri comply.

But Viktor only curls happily into the warmth Yuuri left behind, blissfully unaware of the world.

-

At Worlds, Yuuri skates his way to gold in a billowing cloud of numbness. It’s the first of these in years that he’s participated in without Yuuko. Minako meets him at the kiss and cry, and while Celestino’s effusive praises thicken the air, she gives him a soft, fond look that doesn’t hide the pity in the curve of her smile.

She’s always known him too well.

Yuuri smiles back, only a little empty, and appreciates that she tried.

Viktor’s skates are less impressive than his Grand Prix performances, but he’s still good enough to stay in the top ten. His expression when they announce the scores is devastatingly vacant.

_I watched you_, Yuuri thinks at him from a distance that’s only a few yards but might as well be an entire ocean. _I watched you fall, and I watched you give up, but I watched you try, too, reaching for something you need but don’t understand._

Viktor doesn’t look at him, not once.

Yuuri wonders if he’s angry. He could have got Viktor’s number after their night together, from other skaters if not Viktor himself. He didn’t. It wasn’t a deliberate choice so much as conflicted inaction. Maybe they’re the same thing, in the end.

He announces his retirement later that night, and the world erupts into screams.

-

“They’re calling it the end of an era,” Viktor says from behind him, and Yuuri both marvels and despairs at how easily he recognizes that voice.

“Dramatic,” he replies without missing a beat. “Too much exaggeration.”

He can feel Viktor at his back, close enough that Yuuri can lean back and fall into him, if he so wishes.

They’re on the roof this time. Yuuri’s not sure if he’s supposed to be here, but no one stopped him so he has that excuse. Viktor must have seen him and followed. Yuuri was wrong then.

Viktor did look at him.

The view is pretty and unexceptional, another city sprawled out in a haphazard pattern of shadows and lights. Viktor’s face, when Yuuri turns around, is a sweeter sight.

“Not really,” Viktor says, and it takes Yuuri a moment to remember their conversation. “Between you and Toyomura, there are enough medals and records to leave us all in the dust. You’re history-makers.”

“She goes by Nishigori now,” Yuuri corrects with a smile, remembering Yuuko’s fondness for her new name and new life. “And well, maybe. But we’re still just two people. There will be others.”

“No one will be like you,” Viktor tells him, unexpectedly fierce. He doesn’t look at Yuuri, eyes downcast and expression tight in a way that casts the sleek lines of his face in a harsh light.

When Yuuri reaches over and lifts his face by the chin, he’s mindlessly chasing the man he spent that glorious, confusing night with.

Viktor blinks dispassionately at him, but there’s a flicker in his expression that says he’s not nearly as unaffected as he’s trying to act. Yuuri wants to kiss him. It’s terrible.

He doesn’t but he keeps his hand on Viktor’s face, shifting it so he’s cupping his cheek.

“What will you do now?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s a more honest response than the evasive answers he gave the press, but that hardly makes it better in this case. Viktor nods, unsurprised, and doesn’t step away from Yuuri’s touch.

“I won’t make waves like you when I announce it,” Viktor says with bleak humor. “Story of my life.”

“Oh. You’re quitting.”

Viktor shrugs and gently twists his face out of Yuuri’s hand.

“Maybe I’ll go back to school,” he says absently, like he’s not quite talking to Yuuri anymore. “College is supposed to be interesting.”

“Will you be satisfied with that?” Yuuri asks and flinches at the anger in his voice.

Viktor frowns, eyeing Yuuri like he can’t even begin to understand him.

“No,” he says simply. “But I’m wasting Yakov’s time like this. I’m wasting _my_ time.”

“So find another coach!” It’s a little louder than polite, and Yuuri consciously lowers his voice, but the unnatural vehemence remains. “You can’t stop here. There’s so much more you can do, Viktor, all you need is…”

He trails off because he doesn’t know precisely what it is that Viktor needs, only that Yuuri also feels its lack on a deep, visceral level. But Viktor’s young and full of promise. Unlike Yuuri, he has a chance.

Viktor only sighs.

“You think I haven’t considered that? It’s no use. None of them feel…right. Nothing feels right, not even the ice.” He closes his eyes, but it doesn’t hide the pain that drenches his next words. “I loved the ice.”

“Me too,” Yuuri whispers before he can stop himself.

Viktor’s mouth flattens into a thin line, and he steps closer to Yuuri, smelling of apples.

“Why did you leave?”

Yuuri knows Viktor’s not talking about skating, but he’s tempted anyway to pretend. He doesn’t, not because he’s not a coward, but because he’s caused Viktor enough pain already.

“Because I wanted too much to stay.”

Viktor scoffs, unimpressed, and Yuuri doesn’t begrudge him that.

This will be the moment Viktor cuts shakes his head and leaves, finally understanding that Yuuri’s a pale echo of the man he placed on a pedestal, but then Viktor takes another step forward, leg slotting between Yuuri’s as their lips meet in a chaste kiss.

“You’re an idiot,” Viktor says casually when he steps back. “And a mess. I don’t know why I like you.”

“Give it time,” Yuuri retorts automatically, more bewildered than anything.

“That would make it worse. I don’t think I can survive loving you,” Viktor says, and he’s laughing, except not really.

That’s so far from what Yuuri meant that there’s a long moment where he grasps futilely at any meaning than the obvious, but Viktor’s still so close, looking at Yuuri’s with that beautifully broken expression, and all instinctual denials die on his tongue.

“Don’t quit,” he says instead of addressing…everything else.

“I don’t have a _choice_, Yuuri,” Viktor snaps, and he sounds like his heart is breaking.

And Yuuri – Yuuri’s first thought isn’t something false and generic about there always being a choice, but something so preposterous that he strangles the words in his throat.

Viktor, if he notices, doesn’t mention anything. Instead, he leans his forehead on Yuuri’s and breathes warmly against his lips. Yuuri folds his arms around Viktor, clutching tightly.

“Skating with you has been an honor,” Viktor whispers. “It was my dream. I couldn’t do it justice, but you, Yuuri – you were magnificent, always.”

“You sound like you’re saying goodbye.”

“Isn’t it?”

This, at least, is easy. Every cell in Yuuri’s body screams no.

And he finally says the same words he choked down a moment before.

“I’ll coach you.”

Viktor goes very, very still. Yuuri wants to fill the silence, but he’s no less stunned, both at his audacity and at how much he means it, how willing he is to try.

He never even considered coaching before, not seriously, not as anything other than one of the options pursued by retired skaters. He decided early on that it wasn’t for him, gamely ignoring Yuuko’s insistence that he wouldn’t know until he tried.

And yet–

“I came up here to get you in my bed,” Viktor says after a while, voice dazed and wavering. “And get your number, maybe, before you left. Or to say goodbye, because that night never felt real, but it was the sweetest dream I had, and I wanted–”

Something wet drips on his face, and Yuuri realizes that Viktor’s crying. He doesn’t move to wipe away the tears though he wants to, too scared to unlatch his fingers from their death grip on Viktor’s suit and shatter this tenuous moment.

“Say something,” Viktor begs, and Yuuri forces himself to speak.

“I don’t know why I said that,” he starts, and Viktor tenses, going terribly still like before, and Yuuri’s rushing to clarify even as a voice screams its objections in his head. “I mean it. Viktor, I mean it. But I know nothing about coaching. I never even considered it until now – until you.”

“Then why would you–”

“You can’t stop here. You’re meant for more than this. I haven’t watched you as much as I should have, but I’ve seen enough. Viktor, you have so much potential.”

Viktor’s silent, but Yuuri’s mind isn’t, brimming with questions and accusations, a large part of him perplexed by the smaller, stronger part that wants to take Viktor between his hands and mould him into something great.

_A pathetic way to cling your glory days_, comes the passing thought, and Yuuri rejects it so violently that his arms tighten painfully, possessively around Viktor.

“I can’t, I don’t, I don’t know, Yuuri,” Viktor says, and Yuuri tries to breathe through the sinking feeling in his chest. Viktor continues in a rush. “It’s not a no, it’s _not_, I just need to think, but please, would you–”

“Viktor?”

“Come with me. Come to my room. Stay the night. We can talk in the morning.”

Yuuri _wants_ and is terrified, and he tries to think it over for several seconds. He’s glad he’s not looking Viktor in the eyes because the full force of that impossibly blue gaze won’t let him deny this man anything, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.

“I don’t think spending the night with me will help you think about this, Viktor.”

It earns him a sound that might be a laugh on a better day.

“You’d be surprised. Please, Yuuri.”

Yuuri tucks his face into the hollow of Viktor’s throat, breathing in apples and sweat and the racing of a pulse.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


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